Altered functional connectivity of the thalamus in tinnitus patients is correlated with symptom alleviation after sound
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ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Altered functional connectivity of the thalamus in tinnitus patients is correlated with symptom alleviation after sound therapy Han Lv 1 & Chunli Liu 2,3 & Zhaodi Wang 2 & Pengfei Zhao 1 & Xu Cheng 1 & Zhenghan Yang 1 & Shusheng Gong 2 & Zhenchang Wang 1
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Altered functional connectivity (FC) of the thalamus has been proven to be an important finding in tinnitus patients. Tinnitus can be effectively desensitized by sound therapy. However, it is still unclear whether and how sound therapy affects the FC of the thalamus. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data and anatomical data were longitudinally collected from 25 idiopathic tinnitus patients before and after 12 weeks of sound therapy by using adjusted narrow band noise and from 25 matched healthy controls at the same time interval without any intervention. The FC of bilateral thalami were analyzed by setting the left and right thalamus as the regions of interest. Significant main effect of group on the FC of the thalamus were found mainly in the key components of the default mode network, limbic network, salience network, cognitive control network, auditory network and occipital region. FC values between the thalamus, inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) featured higher values in the tinnitus group at baseline compared to the healthy controls and restoration in tinnitus patients after treatment. Decreased Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI) scores and decreased FC values between the right thalamus and right IFG were positively correlated (r = 0.476, P = 0.016). Abnormal FC of the thalamus is associated with multiple brain networks. Sound therapy has a normalizing effect on the enhanced FC of the thalamus-IFG and thalamus-ACC, representing decreased tinnitus attention control and less involvement of the noise-canceling system. Keywords Tinnitus . Sound therapy . Thalamus . fMRI . Functional connectivity
Introduction Tinnitus, a ringing or buzzing sensation without corresponding external sound stimuli, affects almost one-fourth of adults worldwide (Bauer 2018). Up to 7% of tinnitus patients are severely affected by tinnitus (Bhatt et al. 2016), resulting in problems with concentration, communication, falling asleep,
* Han Lv [email protected] 1
Department of Radiology, Beijing Friendship Hospital, Capital Medical University, No.95, Yong An Road, Xicheng District, Beijing 100050, China
2
Department of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, Beijing Friendship Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100050, China
3
Department of Otolaryngology, The Affiliated Hospital of Chengde Medical College, Hebei 067000, China
anxiety, depression and even suicide. Effective therapeutic strategies are desperately needed. Limited information about tinnitus can be acquired from traditional imaging. However, resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has been used to probe the functional abnormalities of tinnitus pa
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